Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Sex education

Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (17:52): (1861) I wish to raise a matter this afternoon for the attention of the Minister for Education, and I have to say it is not often in this job I am absolutely shocked. I thought I had seen everything, but this one is just beyond words. It is a note from a constituent who said:

Hi Bernie this is a worksheet that my 10 year old daughter brought home from school.

It includes a photo of the worksheet, and it continues:

Part of her homework was to discuss with her father his erections and ejaculation. I find this very disturbing and sickening.

As indeed do I, I have to say. The note continues:

I have complained to the school and was told it was just part of the curriculum. Can you advise who else I should make a complaint to.

Well, I could go on for days about whom she could complain to. She said:

My daughter still plays with dolls and writes letters to the Tooth Fairy there is no way any little girl should be told to ask these questions.

Well, so say all of us. What the hell is going on in this state when 10-year-old girls are told to go home and talk to their father about his erections and about his ejaculations? What the hell is going on here? How the hell are we supposed to protect our kids when this sort of perversion is in our schools? This is what is being dished up to them on a daily basis—and at primary school, not even a secondary school but a primary school. This is just unbelievable. It is staggering. I have three daughters. I could not imagine the reaction of any of them if they were told to do that. They would be traumatised for life. I do not think they would ever recover. I am not sure I would ever recover.

This is just deplorable, and it seems to me to be a part of the ongoing war by the Andrews government against children in particular in this state. Let kids be kids. A 10-year-old girl should not be exposed to this sort of material. I think it is deplorable, and I challenge anybody to just ask yourselves, here tonight: would you be happy if you had a 10-year-old and she was told to go home to talk to her dad about his ejaculation and his erections? Would you be happy with that? Would you be relaxed about that? My God, I would not be. I would be horrified. Indeed we should all be horrified. So I ask the minister to conduct an urgent investigation to remove this material and ensure that no other child is put in the situation that this poor 10-year-old little girl has been put in at this point.